We're at war, we don't have enough men and women in uniform, we definitely can't keep up with translating all the terrorist chatter, so we're kicking out the very people who can translate them. Did you know that we intercepted a key conversation in Arabic the day before September 11 saying that the attack was imminent? We didn't get it translated in time. It's a very simple calculation. What matters more to you - keeping gays out of the military or stopping the next September 11?
The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.
I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.
But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay....
Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?
In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism....
In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course.
This is the video from my appearance on CNN tonight. I was discussing the issue of the US military continually firing gay Arabic-speaking service members even though we have a shortage of such linguists in the military and it is seriously jeopardizing the war in Iraq, let alone the effort to stop the next September 11. My companions in the discussion were Iraq war vet Jon Soltz of Vote Vets, and Mark Smith, an Ann Coulter wannabe (but without the Adam's apple). I researched Smith earlier today and found that in addition to being a winger, he likes to interrupt and keep talking in order to run out the clock when he appears on TV (kind of like his president's approach to winning the war in Iraq). In that circumstance, you simply have to be more aggressive - even though you run the risk of seeming rude and "interrupting", or the aggressive guest owns the show, even if he comes off as a nut. But I knew that Iraq war vet Jon Stolz of Vote Vets was going to be in studio with the guy, so I let Jon handle a lot of the response, especially at the end - and Jon did handle it, with his usual gravitas. (I was especially intrigued by the right-winger feeling the need to tell the audience how much he allegedly enjoys Hooters girls. Look for it.)
